You still have questions about Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar, don’t you?

In our latest installment of Twitter Mailbag, MMAjunkie.com’s Ben Fowlkes continues to sound off on Silva-Bonnar, Jones-Belfort and Daniel Cormier. Plus, who would he pick in a PRIDE rules fight between Bob Sapp and Danny Downes? Read on to find out!

Check out all the questions below, and submit your own at @BenFowlkesMMA.

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Martin Lindgren @MarreoMedia
@benfowlkesMMA It’s been so long since I’ve seen a MMA fight now. So, what do you look forward to the most for UFC 152?

First of all, don’t make me give you the “back in my day” speech about how you MMA fans these days are spoiled. Don’t make me tell you about how we used to have wait months between events, all just so we could walk uphill in a meteor shower and gather in somebody’s attic crawl space to watch fights on grainy VHS tapes. And forget about enjoying a cold beer with the fights. Back then, we only had dirt to drink. “Could I trouble you for a tall glass of dirt?” you’d say. And, if you were lucky, your host would have the nice imported dirt rather than the cheap domestic stuff.

But I digress.

What am I looking forward to on Saturday night, you ask? I guess I have to admit that I’m looking forward to Jon Jones vs. Vitor Belfort, in the same way that you look forward to a party where you know something terrible is going to happen but at least it won’t happen at your house. In the genuine, pure athletic sense, I’m looking forward to seeing Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson go at it. Every time I watch the flyweights it feels like the closest I’ll ever come to seeing two hummingbirds fight. And, let’s be honest, if I stood outside your house and shouted, “Come quick, two hummingbirds are fighting!” you wouldn’t even pause to put on your shoes before sprinting outside to see it.

Ryan Manahan @AFragileSmile
@benfowlkesMMA Will Stephan Bonnar be the yardstick on how we measure a Jones-Silva Super Fight since Bonnar fought them both?

I’m sure we’ll probably do that, yeah. I’m also sure we probably shouldn’t. You know how, in the film “Rob Roy,” there’s that dude with the gross teeth who loses sword fights to both Tim Roth and Liam Neeson? Then, when Roth and Neeson are finally going to fight at the end, the only barometer you have to tell you how it might go is their respective performances against the dude with the gross teeth, who they both beat pretty easily? This is kind of like that. We won’t be able to stop ourselves from making a series of unhelpful comparisons that ignore the many variables at work, but we would be better off if we could.

joe mosqueda @joedaddy85
@benfowlkesMMA darkness johnson is fighting this month. he got KO’d by swick just last month. why is he fighting so soon? This aint the NFL!

Good question. Rather than speculate on an answer, I went right to the source and asked DaMarques Johnson himself. Did he have any concerns about accepting a short-notice fight at the UFC on FUEL TV 5 event in Nottingham just eight weeks after suffering a knockout?

“Nope,” Johnson said. “I had no thoughts about it. It was, ‘Hey DaMarques, you want to fight?’ Uh, yeah I do. That’s about as much thought as I put into it.”

Of course, there was the issue of his 45-day suspension from the California State Athletic Commission. That expired on Tuesday of this week, Johnson said, and he had just come from an appointment with a neurologist to get cleared to fight. Because of the short-notice nature of the bout and the no-contact stipulation of the suspension, he won’t get much, if any chance to spar before the bout on Sept. 29, so when I spoke to him he was concerned only with making weight in time. As for whether he’s at all concerned about the long-term effects of exposing his brain to more punishment so soon after a knockout, Johnson said, “I really don’t plan on living to 60, so I don’t really think about it.”

Apparently, he’s also not too worried about the potential impact it could have on his career to take a fight with minimal preparation so soon after a loss.

“I love doing this,” Johnson said. “This is what I love to do and what I feel like I’ve been put here to do, is fight people. I enjoy it. It’s a reward for me. It’s not just about win or lose, and if you look at my record you see I’m not too concerned about leaving a legacy or anything like that. I’m the guy who likes to fight. I’m way more Chris Leben than I am Anderson Silva.”

So there you go, Joe Daddy. Your very own answer, straight from “The Darkness'” mouth.

Paul Barros @paulmbarros
@benfowlkesMMA who is a suitable replacement for D Cormier? How often do you go to the hot chick coffee cart?#tmb

I could not imagine two questions that have less in common, but okay. With Frank Mir sidelined by an injury, you’ve got to think of it in rental car terms and find someone who is at least a Nissan Sentra to Frank Mir’s Toyota Corolla. Fabricio Werdum seems open to the idea, and I really can’t think of anyone better. It’s the kind of fight where neither guy would be taking a step down, and it’s also a pretty new and interesting stylistic test for them both. As for the second part of your question about my local coffee cart, which seems to be staffed entirely by attractive college girls, let’s just say I go there often enough that they know what I want to drink just like I know exactly what they’ll say during the transaction, but not so often that we know anything else about each other. In other words, I go there the perfect amount.

I think Michael Bisping is generally underrated as a fighter, but yeah, Silva seems like a tough matchup for him, stylistically. Conventional wisdom says that the way to beat Silva (or at least push him past a round or two) is with takedowns and top control. That’s why his toughest tests in the UFC have mostly come against wrestlers who aren’t afraid to walk through a punch or two. But Bisping would have us believe that this isn’t necessarily the best way to get the job done. As he told me when I spoke with him recently:

“I’ll fight [Silva] on the feet. Everyone just wants to take Anderson down. They don’t want to stand with him. I want to show the world that I can do that. I’ll sell that fight by beating Brian Stann in impressive fashion to show people that me and Anderson Silva will be an exciting fight, and one I can beat him in.”

I’m not sure how well I like Bisping’s chances in a shootout on the feet with arguably the world’s greatest fighter, but at least he doesn’t lack for confidence.

Matthew Thomas @mthomf1
@benfowlkesMMA What do you think are the best and worst/most annoying qualities of mma fans?

It’s probably not a good idea to make broad generalizations about any group of people based on their one common interest, but fine, I’ll give it a shot anyway. The best thing about MMA fans? Definitely their passion. The people who not only buy all the pay-per-views, but also post on the forums and read all the pre- and post-fight articles, those are the people who make it possible for someone like me to make a living writing about this stuff, which is really nice because I’m pretty much unemployable otherwise.

As for their most annoying trait(s)? I’m always surprised at how willing some fans are to question a fighter’s courage or toughness. Maybe we’ve seen so many guys fight through broken hands and busted faces that we take their willingness to endure pain and punishment for granted. On a related note, I really hate a crowd that’s quick to boo when there’s even a brief lull in the action. And hell, as long as I’m making a list, I’m not crazy about how bandwagon-happy MMA can be at times, but that’s true across most pro sports.

In general, I think MMA fans often have the virtues of their faults. At times, their passion can turn into a kind of toxic negativity (I often wonder if some fans aren’t more passionate about the fighters they hate than the ones they love, for instance), and their enthusiasm sometimes results in a rush to premature judgment, even when it’s positive (remember “The Machida Era”?). One thing MMA fans usually aren’t, however, is apathetic. I love them for that. Even when I kind of hate them for other stuff.

Tim Bennett @tcbennett84
@benfowlkesMMA Should the UFC conduct a study on MMA camps to find best practices to reduce injuries & share them at the fighter summit?

Before I answer this question, can I add something to the list of things I like about MMA fans? I like that this sport has the kind of fans who use phrases like “best practices,” which one usually hears at faculty meetings and not in regard to keeping professional cage fighters healthy. MMA is a sport that attracts a certain type of nerd, and I mean that in the best way (takes one to know one). Nerds are passionate and curious and typically err on the side of obsessive over-analysis. Also, they use phrases like “best practices.” Awesome.

Now, on to this particular nerd’s question. I’m not sure I can see the UFC doing anything so formal as “conduct[ing] a study,” especially since Dana White seems to regard many trainers and coaches with open disdain. Do you see the same guy who called Greg Jackson a “sport-killer” taking the time to facilitate an open dialogue among competing gyms? Because I don’t. I’m also not sure it would really help. Trainers can be just as hard-headed as fighters and promoters, if not more so. They aren’t in any hurry to let some joker from another gym tell them how to do their jobs. Other people’s fighters might get hurt due to overtraining, but when it happens to their guy it’s just bad luck. If anything’s going to change their current practices into best practices, it might have to be the financial pinch that comes with having a shortage of healthy earners on the mats.

Conor Fitz @BigCF77
@benfowlkesMMA which 2 fighters past or present would you liked to have seen fight and why? Even if diff weights/organisations etc.

Call me crazy (or stupid), but I always wanted to see that Randy Couture vs. Fedor Emelianenko bout. If you could take me back to 2007 and make that fight happen in an empty warehouse somewhere in Berlin, with just me and some shady characters in pin-stripe suits standing around watching through the haze of cigar smoke, I’d be a happy man. Maybe afterward we all go out for vodka at some nightclub that used to be a CIA safe house. Maybe Randy and I both black out and wake up stranded on a beach in Morocco with no ID, no money, and no idea how we got there. Maybe our arduous journey back home teaches us both some important lessons about trust, friendship and perseverance. Tell me you wouldn’t watch that movie. Throw in Cate Blanchett as the world-weary female lead, and you can go ahead and mail me my Oscar.

Tony Bray @BrayMMA
@benfowlkesMMA #TMB, cuz i’m nasty, Miletich once said he ate onions before fights. What other delightful antics have you read or witnessed?

In “The Professional,” an excellent boxing novel by the late, great sportswriter W.C. Heinz (seriously, get on Amazon and get yourself a copy), there’s a story of a fighter loading up on garlic before a bout with an opponent who likes to fight in the clinch. In that anecdote, it gets so bad that even the referee is hesitant to get near him. As far as real life personal experience, the first jiu-jitsu academy I ever trained at had a big Australian dude who washed his gi so rarely that anyone who got close to it felt a strong urge to tap out immediately and go take a shower. Another guy I trained with once showed up to the gym with a giant patch of ringworm on his neck, but assured us it would be totally fine as long as he wrapped it up in duct tape first. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out if he was right.

TheKidd @VineStreetLife
@benfowlkesMMA On the CME podcast, you talked about the conundrum of injuries and scheduling…the only answer is fewer shows, agree? #TMB

Fewer shows means fewer fight bookings, which means more available options when you have to replace an injured fighter on short notice, but I don’t know if it addresses the root causes of the current injury epidemic. While there might be some fighters who are suffering from overuse or getting hurt because they had to rush back into training camp right after a fight, the recent high-profile injuries have happened to guys who really weren’t fighting all that often. And when it’s the high-profile guys who are going down, suitable replacements are tougher to find on short notice. The frantic pace of UFC events doesn’t help that issue, but I see it more as a contributing factor than the sole cause.

Cesar M @Alexesar23
@benfowlkesMMA With injuries, should we just expect not to see the fight we pay to see? Was planning to attend UFConFOX5. #tmb

That, right there, is the most troubling part about the plague of injuries. It’s not just the fights it ruins, it’s the doubt it creates even around the ones that still happen. How are fans supposed to buy tickets and book travel when the fight cards are subject to so much change at such late notice? Attending a live MMA event is always something of a gamble, since you can never know whether the fights that look great on paper will be just as fun to watch in person. Now you also have to wonder whether the fights you pay for will happen at all.

It’s not just an issue for ticket sales, either. Some cable and satellite providers have started offering package deals on UFC pay-per-views, where you pay up front and get the next six events for the price of five. It’s a pretty good deal if you know for a fact that you’re going to want to buy all six, but anybody who’s been following this sport for the past couple years knows you can’t predict whether an event three pay-per-views from now will still be worth the money by the time it finally rolls around.

The hard part is, this is an issue the UFC can’t do that much about. Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White can’t be all up in every gym, supervising training sessions and reminding fighters to take it easy on each other. What can they do? I’m not sure I know, but it might be time to try something.

Tyson Raffray @TysonTheMessiah
@benfowlkesMMA #tmb Bellator good business strategy in forcing fighters to wait out their matching period, or bad business creating grudges?

In the short term it might seem like a good strategy, and I can understand why Bellator does it. In the big picture, however, it’s going to hurt, if only because it gives fighters a reason to think twice before signing on with an organization that they may see (secretly or otherwise) as a way-station rather than a final destination. There’s also the question of what it does to the good will most fans seem willing to extend to a non-Zuffa organization. We want to root for the little guy, at least a little bit, but if the little guy is screwing over fighters — or even merely perceived that way — it’s damaging. It’s one thing to exercise your contractual rights, but another to take valuable time off the clock in a fighter’s profitable prime. That doesn’t earn you many brownie points among fans, and sure doesn’t make you a friend to fighters.

Jay Dera @JayGettit
@benfowlkesMMA will there ever be a dominant champion whose primary skill set is bjj. All the top champs now are strikers and wrestlers #tmb

I think we’re quickly moving past the point where we can plausibly say that any dominant champ has one primary skill set. Look at Anderson Silva. He’s a great striker, but if you insist on taking him down he will submit you. Same with Georges St-Pierre, a gifted wrestler who has no qualms about jabbing you in your broken eye all night long. The most dominant champs can typically do more than one thing very well. That’s not to say there aren’t some very successful fighters who started out primarily as jiu-jitsu guys (Werdum, “Jacare” Souza, B.J. Penn, just to name a few), but anyone who wants to become great has to have more arrows in the quiver. On that note, can we stop saying, during the pre-fight introductions, that so-and-so is “a muay Thai fighter” or “a wrestler” or “a jiu-jitsu fighter?” It’s just not true. Not anymore. They’re all mixed martial artists. The style-versus-style stuff is so 1995.

Michael Peterson @MikeCPeterson
@benfowlkesMMA #tmb based on what you know about either culture, which market do you think will be more receptive of MMA? India or China?

I assume that by “based on what you know about either culture,” what you really mean is “based on absolutely nothing.” Because yeah, I’m no expert on India or China, so your guess is as good as mine. I would have assumed that the home of kung fu would be all about MMA, but over the summer I gave a talk to a small group of Chinese students who were visiting the University of Montana, and during this two-hour seminar I showed them a couple clips of classic boxing matches, which they all found pretty disgusting. “This, I think, should not be allowed,” one student said after viewing a single round of Arturo Gatti vs. Mickey Ward. He went on to explain that the Chinese liked sports that were all about technique and form, like gymnastics or table tennis. “No contact,” he added. Granted, that’s a very small sample size from an enormous population, but who knows what either of those countries will make of imported MMA. Seems like the UFC is intent on finding out, one way or another.

Fastball answer: Belfort. At least he has the punching power of a young dinosaur. Bonnar has the toughness of an ancient fossil, but also the speed and footwork of one.

Noah Hubbs @buffaloblue
@benfowlkesMMA Is there a format change that could increase TUF ratings? Or is a time change the only solution?

A time change would certainly help — personally, I haven’t been excited about Friday night TV since “Miami Vice” – but I don’t know that it would turn the whole ship around. The two big problems are 1) it’s the same old thing, with slightly different versions of the same people doing and saying the same thing, season after season after season, and 2) there are enough other MMA offerings on TV that don’t require you to sit through so much talking and pranking and sullen breakfast cereal eating just to get to the part where they actually fight.

Back in 2005, when the chance to see one fight a week on cable TV seemed almost too good to be true, I never missed an episode of “The Ultimate Fighter.” But now, with UFC and Bellator and Strikeforce events filling more weekends than not, it doesn’t hold the quite the same appeal. Especially now that it’s abandoned the live format, why wouldn’t I just wait until the end of the season to find out who matters and who doesn’t, then go back and watch the fights on my DVR while skipping over all the other stuff? As long as it’s pre-taped anyway, why stay home to watch it on Friday night, especially on weekends where the UFC is also penciled in for Saturday? Even MMA fans want to experience the outside world occasionally.

Dylan Allen @DMA_2K11
@benfowlkesMMA If Vitor, Bonnar, and Condit all win, how does the MMA world (fans, journalists, Dana, etc.) react? #tmb

With a full-scale freakout. How else?

Barry Williams @vamtnhunter
@benfowlkesMMA Robert Sapp vs @dannyboydownes. PRIDE rules, New Years Eve, some bar in Chicago. Who ya got?

My gut tells me that Danny Downes has the advantage in any bar fight in Chicago, if only because he has probably spent enough time in many of them to know the lay of the land pretty well. My brain tells me that Bob Sapp will probably have Bulgarian MMA fights or B-movie roles or Japanese game show appearances booked within two days on either side of this New Year’s Eve superfight, so he’s not going to want to risk injury or, you know, train. My prediction? Downes wins very first round submission after Sapp charges in, pulls bottom position in mount, then taps out as soon as he realizes that he is laying on top of a peanut shell.

Pedro @thepbirman
@benfowlkesMMA with all the injuries going on the main events/cards in UFC, why don’t we see undercard fighters injured so often?

Who says we don’t? I think it’s more likely that we just don’t pay as close attention to the changes that happen on the undercard. It’s also more likely for fights on the prelims to be altered or shuffled around instead of cancelled, since prelim fighters are more interchangeable than main event guys. If somebody with only two UFC fights loses his opponent to a knee injury, you can always go out and sign a fighter who’s so desperate to get into the UFC that he’ll take almost any fight on almost any notice. It’s not as if anyone’s going to complain that the quality of a Facebook fight has declined due to a late replacement. Chances are they won’t even notice.

Stael Sonnen @StaleSonnen
@benfowlkesMMA #TMB is it wrong for me to take a little pleasure in seeing fighters on TRT have to pull out from injury, or better yet, lose

I wouldn’t say it’s wrong, though it might not be terribly psychologically healthy to take so much pleasure in the misfortune of others, even if they are exploiting a weird performance-enhancing drug loophole.

Andrew Lawrence @TheClownKid
@benfowlkesMMA #TMB If the UFC held man vs. animal events, would you rather see Overeem vs. a bear, or Anderson Silva vs. a jaguar?

Depends what kind of bear. I feel like Alistair Overeem versus a black bear is kind of a mismatch, so in that case I’d rather see Silva take on the jaguar. If we’re talking about a grizzly, however, then it’s a totally different story. I feel like that one could be competitive, as long as they enter into a gentlemen’s agreement that prohibits takedowns. (sidenote: NEVER trust a grizzly to uphold his end of a gentlemen’s agreement.)

John Paul Fitzgerald @JohnPaulFitzy
@benfowlkesMMA injuries aside this year has been weird 4 the #UFC and mma.. Would implementing a more fan based matchup system help ratings?

The matchups aren’t the problem. Joe Silva and Sean Shelby do a good job of putting together quality, competitive fights. It’s the injuries that force them to reshuffle the deck and come up with plans B, C, and D. I doubt the fans could do any better with what they have to work with.

Max de Vries @MaxWdeVries
@benfowlkesMMA TMB: Where has the great ‘lay ‘n pray’-scare of 2010 gone? Has MMA evolved beyond it? Most wrestlers are pretty exciting now

You haven’t seen Ben Askren fight lately, have you? Kidding (sort of). I think we’ve moved on from the era of the Lay-and-Pray Scare and into the time of the Great Injury Panic. When you’re not sure if the fights will happen, it really doesn’t make much sense to worry too much about how they’ll go.

First, let’s wait and see if that fight materializes before we start thinking of it in conspiracy theory terms. Second, as several of the managers I talked to for a recent story on matchmaking pointed out, the UFC has enough trouble trying to book these fights without also trying to turn them into punitive measures.

Eric Byrne @EricByrne86
@benfowlkesMMA Open workouts, whats the point? They just seem weird and arkward. #TMB

They are weird and awkward and rarely enlightening (with the exception of Josh Barnett’s pro wrestling demonstration in Cincinnati, which was awesome), but they’re good for photos and video footage. Otherwise, the only pre-fight images you get all week are of the fighters sitting around at the press conference with a microphone in front of their faces. That doesn’t make for the most riveting B-roll.

Pedro Figueiredo @pedromfdo
@benfowlkesMMA if @StephanBonnar leaves Rio with no serious injuries from his beating, should we expect him to fight DC too?? Hell why not!

Pedro the Wolf, you so crazy. But since this is not an episode of TUF, I’m not sure we really want to see Bonnar getting in there against a serious heavyweight contender while his bruises are still fresh from a fight with the greatest middleweight of all time. Unless, of course, he shocks the world and finds a way to beat Silva. In that case, Pedro, I’m going to hold you personally responsible for getting Bonnar out of Rio alive and back home to the U.S. safely. Something tells me you’ve got the connections to make it happen without even going through the hassle of customs.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.com.

As the UFC 189 tour made its last stop in Dublin, featherweight champ Jose Aldo was met with a torrent of abuse from the Irish fans. It might have been unpleasant, but it might also have been just what he needed.